Retired from a long working life as secretary/assistant in UN and EU institutions. Freelance stress counsellor and proofreader/copyeditor. Now living in Berlin.
First of all, unless you thrive among loudmouthed adults and screaming children, do not go to Tierpark on a gorgeous (weatherwise) public holiday. (But if it has to be a zoo, do go to Tierpark where there is a lot more space, rather than to Zoo, which is laid out more like a classical zoo and can get seriously crowded).
Anway, I went to find motives for a photo course assignment, which I did not really manage, but did take the following photos:
And just for once, no more birds, but some frogporn instead:
Though I am still so chuffed with this triptych that I am posting it again :-):
Before going to the course, I walked along the river for a couple of hours. I did not see as many birds as I had expected. I had read somewhere that there was a good chance of seeing Kingfishers there, but there was no sight of them.
I then had a quick breakfast in a very nice little café – Café Cador – on the way to the course venue.
If I had read the course description properly, and more than once (or even just once – I can’t honestly remember), I might have realised that it was about ICM – something I do now and then, enjoy in small doses, but often end up finding a bit kitchy.
Never mind – the first morning was a good refresher course, and a reminder to use the in-camera double exposure more often, and to sometimes use Photoshop and not only Lightroom.
And this freed up some time for me to go and do my own thing. And Bamberg had been on my list for a while anyway.
The – very many here – stumble stones often have different texts than I am used to from Berlin. I had to google Izbica – shows how much I know.
The centre of Bamberg being much too crowded for my taste – streets and bridges choc-a-bloc with tourists – drove me crazy, so I took another walk along the river. This time I did see a Kingfisher twice, but was unable to get a decent photo. They are now on the fast track to the top of my bucket list.
By the way, I am in one of those annoying German hotels that have not joined the 21st century yet and take it upon themselves to decide whether and when guests need a functioning internet, and Sunday morning is clearly not one of those times, in their opinion. (Also on Sunday morning, breakfast is not till 8.00 – “so people can sleep longer”. (????). Perhaps because we are in Bavaria and they think they are still living in a dictatorship? But seriously, I guess that is because most visitors are not here because it is a UNESCO World Heritage site – and certainly not for the birdwatching – but for the beer – there are hordes of noisy beer-swigging-burping tourists everywhere.
On day 2, having made the final decision to not return to the course, I escaped the tourist hordes and went to Stocksee and Schloß Seehof.
What I liked best about the castle was that they are letting wildflowers grow all around instead of those awful, unsustainable mowed lawns. The wildflowers find their way there because they are made to grow under those precise conditions. A lawn, which is not indigenous to the area, needs fertilizer and an inordinate amount of water in order to grow, just so that they have to be mowed using fossil-fuel guttling machines. Lawns are absurd and ought to be banned everywhere.
There is also an excellent café with real food. And a couple of interesting (manmade I guess) ponds. I saw many birds, including several birds of prey, but only managed to photograph various waterfowl, some of which I have yet to identify.
And finally, a church in Memmelsdorf while waiting for the bus back to Bamberg:
Moving on to Nürnberg – less than an hour on a regional train from Bamberg. Which is kind of the only reason I am here – and because I have never been here before.
After visiting the Nuremburg Trials Memorial, I walked along the river Pregnitz to the Kaiserburg and then down through the centre back to the hotel.
Day two walked up to Kaiserburg, for the pre-brunch exercise :-), the view, and because I had read that a pair of peregrine falcons are constantls to and fro the tower feeding a couple of offspring, but all I saw were a bunch of pigeons.
I then went out to Wöhrder See, a short busride away. A lovely, and very interesting, man-made area with wetlands, an information centre, and many waterfowl. After brunch in lake-side Strandcafé, I spent a couple of hours walking the shores. In addition to the usual suspects, I saw a green woodpecker (still not happy with the photo – must keep trying).
Back in the centre, I visited the impressive Neues Museum für Kunst und Design.
On my way to a Volkshochschule birdwatching walk on the cemeteries at Bergmannstraße, I swung by Urbanhafen just in time to see about eight baby coots make their first plunge into the water from one of the manmade “islands” there.
Shortly after sunrise, it was cold, and half misty half sunny, and ended up as a gorgeously warm and sunny day.
On the Bergmannsttraße cemeteries, it was still a bit misty, but the sun was definitely winning.
Followed by a walk in the area of the hotel/course which I did not know at all:
Bonus info: I am staying at Leonardo Hotel Hamburg Elbbrücke, purely because of the proximity to where my course on 13 April takes place. Since I have been to Hamburg many times, it is always interesting to get familiarised with different areas of a city, but the problem with this one is the difficulty finding something to eat in the area without having to traipse back to the S-Bahn (either Elbbrücken or Veddel) and travel.
Google will show you several cafés that look good on the internet but my walkabout yesterday revealed (and I don’t mean to sound neither sexist nor racist, but this might bother other old, single women even more than it bothers me) that they are all crammed full of men of a different ethnic origin than German, staring at you as if to say you definitely do not belong there, AND chain-smoking (yes, also in the inside area). I did have a very good cup of coffee on the terrace of one of them, but I was unable to find anywhere where I would imagine having dinner on Sunday night when the restaurant at my hotel will be closed. This poses a bit of a problem since I will need to spend time post-processing the photos taken during the course, rather than travelling around looking for something to eat. My solution in this case: Lieferando.
The view of Elphi (one of the world’s best concert halls, if you ask me) in the early morning of 13 April:
And finally, almost back at my hotel after a great workshop with Blende2-Hamburg, I came across these two pairs of different subspecies of geese. The Nile Geese (left) are supposed to be invasive and territorial and aggressive towards the domestic grey geese, but these were lying down, sunning themselves together (and totally unfazed by the trains roaring past in the background) until I appeared.
IN BREMERHAVEN:
Started with a walk to familiarise myself with the area and enjoy the maritime flair.
Visited Zoo am Meer for some animal portraits and a bit of ICM:
I am calling the below series “The gull and the garbage”, or: how to turn two OK photos and one epic fail into a story:
More photos to come
On day two I spent a lovely morning on (at? in?) Luneplate, a nature protection area especially famous for its birdlife, about 1,5 hours by bus from central Bremerhaven. Lots of reeds, so that will be interesting soon, when the types of birds nesting there arrive, lay their eggs, for the cuckoo to then come and throw some of those eggs out and lay their own eggs there. Also a wetlands area and a viewing tower. And some cows.
Also, I finally got a couple of decent photos of the Chiffchaff/Zilpzalp. In Berlin, I had ever only heard, seen and managed one photograph of it, and in Hamburg I heard it everywhere all the time but did not get a photo. They are tiny and move around all the time. I also got a bad photo of a reed bunting/Rohrammer.
I saw many geese, ducks and egrets far away, and some birds of prey, but did not get any good photos.
The real highlight came when I was waiting for the bus to get back to Bremerhaven. I was watching some swallows whizzing around at breakneck speed without even attempting to photograph them, until one of them suddenly sat on a branch, which made me wonder. They usually stay in the air for months. I still had my camera locked and loaded and in burst mode so aimed it at it, or her, as it would turn out, when this happened:
INGREDIENTS: 1/2 cup black lentils 3 + 1/2 cup water 3 pieces garlic 2 shallots 2 + 2 tbsp olive oil 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp fennel seeds 2 tbsp lemon juice 1/2 tsp salt pepper to taste 1/2 cup tahini few sprigs parsley
DIRECTIONS: 1. Add the black lentils to a small saucepan along with about 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer on medium low for 25mins 2. Crush, peel, and roughly chop the garlic. Peel and slice down the shallots 3. Heat up a sauté pan to medium heat. Add 2 tbsp of olive oil followed by the garlic and shallots. Fry for 2-3mins. Add the cumin seeds and fennel seeds, then cook for another 30 seconds. Set the pan aside 4. Drain the remaining liquid from the black lentils and transfer to a food processor. Add the sautéed garlic and shallots. Add 1/2 cup water, lemon juice, salt, and pepper to taste. Blend for about 2mins. Add the tahini, then blend again for about 1min 5. Plate the dip and garnish with salt, pepper, chopped parsley, and olive oil to serve
Having set off from Berlin very early in the morning of 4 April, while walking in the direction of my hotel in the Altstadt, I looked for a nice café first thing upon arrival, and found Café Bikini in Berliner Straße. New, with healthy food choices and great coffee. Highly recommended.
Later in the day, I re-discovered another very nice café, this one on the other side of the river Neiße in Zgorelec. I also still find it fun to be able to nip over to Poland for a coffee. While we still can. Before Trump hands Putin Poland on a silver platter.
Photos from day 1:
Day 2: before going back to Café Bikini for brunch – an early walk in Stadtpark where the day before I had heard and seen many birds, and photographed, a.o. my first Hawfinch/Kernbeißer.
Heard many different birds again, and got some photographs of variable quality. Am posting most of them here, at least for the purposes of identification later.
Not sure about this one (same bird in all three photos):
The following are Nuthatch/Kleiber, Red Kite/Rotmarlin, Robin/Rotkehlchen, Song Thrush/Singdrossel, Starling/Star, in that order.
Two small buildings next to each other, a monument for the 15th East Meridian, some miniature daffodils, and the obligatory tree in black and white, in that order.
Photos from the afternoon’s tour of five “Lost Places”
The tours were not dedicated photo tours, and the groups were large (I estimate about 35 people on the first tour). The following is the best I was able to do with the time, space, opportunity, and light (or lack of) available.
The tour on day 2 had slightly fewer participants, but again the usual, obligatory handful of badly brought-up retards who were unable or unwilling to keep their mouths shut while the guide was speaking.
Same number of places visited as on day one (six) but where we walked about 7 km on day 1, we only walked between four and five km on the second tour. Others who might want to attend one or more of these tours should be prepared for lots of stairs.
Before the tour, I took this one from my hotel room:
Some of the photos from the Sunday tour were taken on the way from place to the next:
With Rob Crouch. Another great walk and as usual fun to meet other bird nerds, and great to be out in some lovely nature.
And we did not even notice the partial solar eclipse!
By the way, it has come to my attention that not all nature lovers in Berlin are aware of the Umweltkalender, so here it is again. Depending what you look for, there are filters, and I personally filter for “Führung” and then in Zielgruppe for “Erwachsene” – that weeds out a lot of activities in which I would not be particularly interested.
Some of VHS’s birdwatching events are listed in Umweltkalender, but unfortunately, in true, German IT-angst fashion, not all (and consistency is not Volkshochsschule’s Spitzenkompetenz in any case – VHS in each Bezirk seem to function as completely separate institutions that have nothing whatsoever to do with each other (???). For example, this one, to which I have signed up, is not in Umweltkalender: https://www.vhsit.berlin.de/VHSKURSE/BusinessPages/CourseDetail.aspx?id=712215, and I recently discovered one of Rob Crouch’s walks that is also not listed there, so if you want to stay in the loop, you unfortunately have to keep checking the VHS website which is still really heavy and time-consuming to navigate.
Back to this Saturdays’s walk: We saw many birds but unfortunately, I did not manage any particularly good photos. However, for purposes of identification, I am posting some here nonetheless.
On Moorlinse we saw a duck which on the spot we identified as a Pochard/Tafelente, and in ZickZack Graben a cute little thing which at first we thought was a kind of lark, then when seeing it in-camera some kind of warbler, but on seeing the photo enlarged, Agata suggests it might be a Blackthroat/Schwarzkehlschen. Walking along, we then saw cranes, herons and geese (as well as several birds of prey hovering over the trees at the edge too far away to be photographed).
We also witnessed, from a great distance, a bird being mobbed by a crow. This would normally happen to a bird of prey, and was initially identified as a Hen Harrier, or some other Harrier, alternatively as a Kiebitz (but do crows usually harrass birds other than birds of prey?). The photos are terrible, and the answer is blowing in the wind, but somebody in my trusty Facebook group on birds in Berlin says that the bird on the second photos is definitely a Kiebitz. If anybody sees this and has comments, they are welcome in an e-mail to me here.
In the forest on the other side of the road, after the lunch break, we saw traces of beaver, but of course no beavers in the middle of the day. We would need to come back at dawn or at dusk (and then still not be able to see those shy and elusive buggers). But there was one piece of some kind of cattle – sometimes there are many more of them – perhaps as from April.
Also a couple of Mallards/Stock Ente:
The following is a series of photos of a Nuthatch/Kleiber we saw moving in and out of what is probably his lodgings for the season, and yes, I know, they are quite common, and I already have hundreds of photos of them, but this one was too cute not to photograph.
Moving on to Bogensee, where I had hoped to see the Great White Egret, instead we saw a heron preparing to move in for the kill, and some ducks which we think might be Teals/Krickente.
Other photos taken along the way:
And finally, my favourite subject – the obligatory trees in black&white:
After a “successful” check-up (two years and eight months cancer free – and boob-free, but you can’t have everything) with my invaluable gynecologist, Dr Ursina Heil (who shares offices with my equally invaluable GP, Dr Thomas Heil) in Halensee, on a tip from Agata, a fellow bird nerd, and bridge buddy.
My main purpose was to finally get a decent photo of a Green Woodpecker/Grünspecht, which has become my Achilles’ Heel. The first couple of years in Berlin, I never saw any, and after I started seeing them from time to time, I have ever only managed really bad photos of them. Recently, I have been to places where, alledgedly, there should be several of them, but not seen any, and today was no exception, but I got lucky in other ways.
I started in Schönower Park, where there was a loud party, so I only photographed some of those invasive beasts – Mandarin Ducks – and a small section of the John F. Kennedy School.
Further south in Heinrich-Laehr Park, I had the priviledge of coming up close and personal with a Goshawk/Habicht, disturbing him in a freshly slaughtered meal of what I assume used to be a pigeon.
Other results: A Great Spotted Woodpecker/Buntspecht, what I think was a Redwing/Rotdrossel, and a cute, singing Robin/Rotkehlchen.
